


In a Different Story

by J (j_writes)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 16:10:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2031438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_writes/pseuds/J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Correct me if I'm wrong, Moreau, but it seems like all your stories are about Shepard."<br/>"You're wrong," Joker confirmed. "All my stories are about the Normandy. All the good ones, anyway."</p>
            </blockquote>





	In a Different Story

**Author's Note:**

> One million thanks to [Maxxiedemon](http://maxxiedemon.tumblr.com) for the stunning art. 
> 
> (set over the course of ME2, so Alliance fraternization regs don't apply, but since Shepard & Joker are people to whom rank means a great deal, even symbolically, there's an inherent power differential there. avoid if that's not for you. also, given the nature of the game, contents include discussion of death and mourning, alcohol as stress relief, and brief references to intense medical procedures, physical disability, and mental illness.)
> 
> for those following along at home, this is the same Shepard from [Don't Feel the Fire](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1752788), in a very slightly alternate universe.

[](http://maxxiedemon.tumblr.com/post/93077588273/thats-what-this-is-about-she-asked-a)

"This isn't a story about Shepard." 

The man eyed him over the rim of his drink and didn't quite laugh. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Moreau, but it seems like all your stories are about Shepard."

"You're wrong," Joker confirmed. "All my stories are about the _Normandy_. All the good ones, anyway."

"Pretty fine distinction."

"But an important one." He took a long slow drink and waited for the other guy to shrug before continuing. "This one didn't happen that long ago, and actually, it was against some of your guys. Maybe you were there."

The guy looked at him impassively. Joker had been letting him buy him drinks for a while, now, despite – or maybe because of – the Cerberus logo he occasionally wore. Joker still wasn't quite sure if he was getting hit on or grilled for information, but it hardly seemed to matter. Half the stories he told were made up entirely, and the other half were so embellished that they wouldn't have been recognizable to anyone who'd been there, let alone to this guy. He'd been grounded, stripped of his rank, and his ship and commander were in pieces. Sitting at a bar and spinning fiction over free drinks sounded like a goddamn perfect use of his time, no matter who was buying.

The man's OmniTool pinged, and Joker tossed back the last of his drink. "Hot date?" he asked.

"You could say that," the man said dryly. "Story's going to have to wait."

"Give him a smooch for me," Joker said. "Her? Them? Whoever." He toasted the guy with his empty glass. "See you when I see you."

"Date's not for me," the guy replied, and then it was Joker's OmniTool making noise. 

"Hm," Joker said. "Hasn't done that in a while. It's like people don't know what to say to you after you get your crew blown to bits. _Lovely weather we're having. How's that ship you were serving on? Still in pieces? Good luck with that, buddy._ " He checked his messages, then looked up at the guy with startled eyes and checked them again. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

"Yeah, that's what they pay me for," the guy agreed. "To pull your leg."

"My legs don't put up with much pulling," Joker replied idly, scrolling through the message for a third time. "This is for real?"

The guy sighed impatiently. "You're a damn good pilot, Moreau. The fact that the Alliance doesn't want you…that's their loss. And my boss's gain, if you play your cards right."

For the first time in far too long, Joker felt a smile begin to spread across his face. It felt unfamiliar and strained, but he was already picturing himself behind the controls of a ship again. It wouldn't be the _Normandy_ , and it wouldn't be Shepard at his shoulder calling the shots, but it would be something, an improvement on drinking his way from bar to bar until someone said something to piss him off, and he got tossed out on his ass, nursing a new round of injuries. 

"I'm pretty good at cards," he said as he hit _reply_. "I've spent some time learning from the best, after all."  
______________

He thought he was prepared.

It had been less than 24 hours since they had told him about Shepard and the _Normandy_ , and he hadn't slept, staying up to watch the footage from Lawson's lab over and over instead. He held his breath in suspense through each procedure, fearing the worst every time something went wrong, feeling the pain of losing her all over again as she half woke, her familiar voice tight with a level of pain he'd never heard from her. He committed each brutal moment to memory, because he wasn't sure what she'd remember, and somebody had to.

He thought he was prepared, and then there she was, her voice ringing out strong and defiant in the empty room as she challenged the hologram of the Illusive Man. Her back was to him, but even the way she stood was the same, shifting from side to side like she was just waiting for an excuse to whip out her gun. Her hair was longer, but was pulled back in her customary ponytail, and he could see new scars tracing lines up the skin at the base of her neck. 

He leaned against the door, and for the first time, he started to believe.

"Hey, Commander," he said in the most casual voice he could manage as the hologram faded and he stepped forward, and the smile that lit her face as she whipped around made him catch his breath at how much he'd missed it. That smile didn't exist in any of the footage he had of her, any of the records she'd left behind. It was too fleeting, too infrequent, and he'd forgotten how it felt to be the target of it. "Just like old times, huh?"

"Joker," the word was almost a laugh, and she crossed the room to him in a couple of strides, clasping him on the shoulder and staring at him like she half expected him to fade away like another hologram.

He reached to cover her hand with his, mostly to feel her warm and solid and _alive_ there in front of him, and he managed a smile as his eyes traced the new scars across her face, the unmarked skin where her old ones should have been. "Welcome back," he said, and if his voice was a bit unsteady, she didn't give any sign that she'd noticed.

They met the new _Normandy_ together, and he felt a moment of reluctant gratitude to the Illusive Man for returning them both to him at the same time, because the thought of one without the other was practically unbearable. They went over schematics for a while, as the hull was being painted, and talked about drive cores and shuttle capabilities instead of anything that mattered. 

The first step onboard was like coming home, and as he got settled into the cockpit, he kept a corner of his feed trained on the tour Miranda was giving Shepard, watching her learning her way around her new vessel, and continually catching tiny signs that this was _real_ , that it was _her_ reaching out to touch the railing of the new galaxy map, peering in at the idling drive core, not some Shepard-shaped illusion.

It was a long while before she joined him in the cockpit, greeting him and admiring his new digs, then immediately turning her attention to EDI, who had already thoroughly proven that her life goal was to make Joker miserable. It was only afterward, when EDI's console was staring off into the distance as she turned her attention to something Miranda needed on the crew deck, that Shepard relaxed even a little, leaning against the back of the copilot's seat and looking vaguely lost.

"This is…" she waved a hand at the ship, herself, him. "I don't even know where to start."

"Pretty overwhelming, huh, Commander?" he said sympathetically. "I can imagine. If you need any help filling in the gaps, I'm all yours."

She looked at him searchingly. "How much do you know?"

He refused to flinch, but his eyes lost their focus on hers. "Enough," he said flatly.

"How much is that?" Her fingers traced the line of one of her scars up the back of her hand and he watched silently until she paused at her cuff.

He shook his head and turned away. "What do you want from me, Commander? You want all the gory details? No. Sorry, find the damn footage yourself. I'm sure the ship's thing can help you with that."

"Unfortunately, I have a block - " EDI began, and Shepard cut her off.

"Not now, EDI," she said sharply. He could feel her hovering behind him, and let out a breath of relief when she rested her hand on the back of his chair instead of his shoulder, because he wasn't sure he could have dealt with her touching him right then. She tapped the leather for a few moments to a rhythm only she could hear, then said quietly, "It was real for you."

He closed his eyes and laughed humorlessly at how genuinely surprised she sounded. "It was _real_ , Commander, full stop. The fact that you don't remember it…well, that's just lucky for you, I guess."

She returned his dry laugh. "Lucky. Right." He opened his mouth to say something – apologize, maybe, but when he looked up at her, she had her business face back on. "What do you say?" she asked, gesturing at the controls. "Is she ready to fly?"

"Good to go, Commander," he assured her. "We've got the okay for liftoff on your word."

She looked down at him, and a tiny smile pulled at the corner of her mouth as she said, "Then take her to sea, Mr. Moreau."

"Aye aye, ma'am," he agreed, and the _Normandy_ 's engines roared to life beneath them.  
______________

Ship's night was a strange concept, floating out between worlds where it was night almost all the time, and he usually let the relief pilot take over for those hours, when the course was steady and the crew was mostly asleep. Sometimes it was relaxing, though, piloting his vessel through the stars with just the hum of her engines and the sound of his own voice to keep him company, and sometimes he wasn't alone at all, Shepard finding her way downstairs to curl up in the copilot's seat and watch the universe go by with him.

He heard the door open, but when he turned, there was no one there. "Jesus, Commander," he said to the empty space by the doorframe. "You're as bad as that thief you picked up."

She let her tactical cloak drop, lifting a shoulder in an unapologetic shrug. "I didn't feel like talking to anyone."

"And yet, here you are."

She smirked. "The other person keeping up their end of the conversation isn't usually one of your requirements," she pointed out. "Case in point, were you just talking to the _Normandy_ when I came in?"

Joker sighed. "It was so much nicer when she didn't talk back." Shepard looked warily over at EDI's platform, but it remained quiet. "I think she's sleeping," Joker said in a stage whisper.

"You know very well that I do not sleep, Mr. Moreau," EDI's voice said calmly.

"See what I mean?" he asked, looking at Shepard. She gave him a thin smile as she folded into the copilot's chair. He turned to eye her closely in the flickering lights of his console. She looked tired, the scars on her face glowing faintly. "You doing all right, Commander?" he asked, and when her expression started to harden into a glare, he waved a hand towards her face. "You're in night light mode, there."

"Oh." She reached up to touch the edge of one of her scars with a finger. "I forget that they do that." Her eyes met his. "How weird is it?"

"Pretty weird," he allowed. "But if weird fazed me - " he shrugged and waved a hand to encompass the ship, its inhabitants, their mission. 

"Yeah," she agreed. "Just part of the job."

"I don't know, I think getting patched together in a lab might be a little bit above and beyond the call, even for you." 

"Tell that to the Illusive Man," she suggested.

"Is that an order?" Joker asked excitedly. "Because I will go in there," he jerked a thumb back towards the comm room, "and say it right to his creepy holographic face."

She smiled. "I bet you would," she said. Her smile faded away as he watched, though, and he frowned, concerned.

"What's up, Commander?"

"A message was patched through today, containing some information that...well, that I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with."

"Information about…?" he prompted.

She was silent for a long moment, watching the stars out the window, then said quietly, "They found her, Joker."

There was no mistaking her meaning. He swallowed, his throat feeling tight. "They don't want you to – "

She breathed out a painful laugh. "Of course they do."

" _Fuck_."

"My thoughts exactly."

"Messages get lost," he suggested. "It happens all the time. They bounce off the wrong satellite, get deleted by your ship's ostensibly benevolent overlord – "

"I can hear you, Mr. Moreau."

" – have their data corrupted in the transfer process," he continued without acknowledging EDI. "There are any number of things that could have happened to those coordinates that don't end in – " He broke off, feeling faintly ill at the thought of her picking her way through the wreckage at the site where she had died. "That," he concluded with a grimace.

"Yeah," she agreed. "You're right." Her OmniTool flickered to life, lighting her face with an orange glow, and when she shut it down again, she looked a little calmer. 

"Deleted?" he offered.

"Forwarded to you." He frowned. "Don't fight me on this one, Joker. They're not wrong. It should be me. It _has_ to be me. But…not right now."

"Understood, Commander. You tell me when you're ready, and I'll be suiting up right there with you."

She looked at him, eyes bright in the light of his console. "Do you even _have_ a suit?"

"Of course I – are you fucking with me right now, Commander?"

"I am," she confirmed. "But I think this is one I'm going to have to take on my own."

He nodded. "Offer's there."

She was quiet for a few moments. "If it's any consolation," she said finally, "you're the only one I'd think about accepting that offer from."

He returned her smile. "Weirdly, it kind of is," he said. "I'll have you here, regardless," he said, tapping the corner of his console where her suit feed appeared whenever she was ashore.

She nodded and didn't respond. He scanned through the ship's diagnostics idly, checking parameters while she looked out the window for a while. When she spoke again, she didn't turn to look at him. "I never really asked," she said, "about what happened…after."

"Not much to tell," he said, "beyond what you already know. They did their best to discredit you, to scatter those of us who were left to all corners of the galaxy. There was a memorial, but it was…brief. Too formal." He laughed quietly. "The one the crew held afterwards at Purgatory was more your style, I think."

"I'm sorry I missed it."

"Me too," he agreed fervently. "Everyone mostly went their separate ways after that, and you know how most of that ended up. Garrus went to C-Sec and then to Omega, Liara to Ilium, Tali back to the fleet. Doc and Williams got posted to the colonies."

"And you?" she prompted.

He shook his head. "You know what happened to me, Commander."

"Not really," she pointed out. "I know you ended up with Cerberus, but two years is a long time."

"I…" he hesitated, momentarily unsure of how much to tell her. Then he met her eyes, and all he could think of was the footage from Miranda's lab, the things he knew about her that he wasn't even sure she knew herself. "I fell apart," he said, too harshly, and she had the grace not to flinch at the words. "I completely fucking imploded. We kept fighting the Council, those of us who were left on the Citadel – Anderson, me, Garrus. Trying to get them to see that the Reaper threat wasn't some children's story made up to scare them. It…didn't go over so well," he finished lamely.

She eyed him. "When you say you were grounded..."

"I mean I was declared unfit for duty," he said flatly. "I probably _was_ unfit for duty, but not for the reasons you'll find in the official reports."

" _Joker_." She looked pained, and her voice was low and rough, but with none of the disappointment he'd expected. Instead, she shook her head, fury welling up in her voice as she said, "You and the _Normandy_ almost single-handedly took out Sovereign and saved the Council. You deserved a fucking _commendation_ , not – " 

"It wasn't single-handedly," he said stiffly. "We lost a lot of good people that day."

"We did," she agreed, nodding. "But that doesn't change the fact that you're a goddamn hero. I might have been tied up with Saren at the time, but I saw the footage afterwards, same as everyone else. What you can do with this ship – " she reached to pat the console, and a brief frown flickered across her brow. " _That_ ship," she corrected herself. "It's a fucking gift, and it saved way more lives than we lost."

"This one too," he assured her. "I'm looking forward to getting the chance to show off what we can do. Right, girl?" he said to the _Normandy_ , and Shepard smiled.

"See?" she said, "I knew I heard you talking to her."

He returned the smile. "Don't tell anyone," he said. "They might declare me crazy again."

She shook her head. "Not funny."

"A little funny," he objected. He flipped to the nav screen and stretched, yawning. "I think I'm going to call in the relief," he said. "I should probably grab a nap before we hit the next relay."

She nodded, unfolding herself from the copilot's chair and stretching. "Same," she agreed. 

"EDI, you have the bridge until the relief gets up here," he said, and watched as her console flickered to life. 

"Understood, Mr. Moreau."

Shepard matched his pace on the way to the elevator, slowing her normal jog to a relaxed shuffle, and he caught her smiling out of the corner of his eye as they made their way down the stairs. "What?" he demanded.

"EDI has the bridge?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. 

"For about a minute and a half until I wake Riley," he said. "Would you rather I not? I've been trying it out for a few minutes at a time."

"You're testing her."

"Wouldn't you?"

She nodded, tapping the button for the elevator as they approached it. "Unfit for duty, my ass," she muttered.

He grinned. "I don't know, I'd say your ass is pretty fit for duty." It was a joke he might not have made in another lifetime, where she'd been alive and with him the whole time, but he'd spent two long years thinking he'd never be able to crack jokes at her again, to see the way her face shifted so quickly between faintly annoyed and genuinely amused, and he couldn't help himself. She didn't disappoint, her laugh quick and bright as the elevator door opened in front of them, and he waved her in. "'Night, Commander."

"Get some sleep, Joker."

"Yeah, you too," he told her, and raised a hand to wave as the doors slid closed between them. He loitered in the CIC for a few moments, waiting for the elevator to return, and when he turned to see the galaxy map glowing brightly in front of him, he stepped forward, glanced around for witnesses, and then quickly typed in the coordinates from his OmniTool, just to see.

 _Alchera_.

He stood there too long, leaning heavily against the railing, the stars blurring in front of his eyes as he stared at the tiny planet, until EDI prompted him, "The elevator has arrived, Mr. Moreau."

"Right," he said, shutting down the galaxy map with a wave of his hand. 

"If you would like to change our course – " she began, but he cut her off.

"No," he said sharply. She fell silent and he closed his eyes, sighing as he leaned back against the elevator wall and punched the button. "No," he said more quietly, "thank you, EDI. That won't be necessary."

"Good night, then," she offered, and he had to laugh at how unnatural it sounded from her.

"'Night," he replied. "I'd tell you to sleep well, but I guess that wouldn't mean much, huh?"

"No, it would not," she agreed. "I will, however, be sure to remind Shepard to sleep eventually."

He blinked, looking up at the ceiling as the elevator doors opened. "Hey, thanks, EDI," he said. "That's surprisingly decent of you."

"I do not know that it will do any good," she admitted.

"Well, no," he agreed. "Probably not. But it's worth a try."

"Sleep well, Mr. Moreau."

"Yeah," he agreed vaguely as he opened the doors to the crew quarters. It had seemed like such an unattainable goal for so long, to sleep through the night without dreaming of explosions and pain and the vast emptiness of space, and he still didn't manage it most nights. But at least now he got to wake up in a world where the pieces were starting to fall back together, where he had a team and a ship and his commander again. 

It was almost worth the nightmares, that moment of waking up again to realize the world was a little less broken than it had been.  
______________

"Rendezvous in 30 seconds, Commander," he said, looking up at her. "Good luck."

She patted his shoulder on the way out of the cockpit, her hand heavy in her armor, and he guided the _Normandy_ carefully into position alongside the Collector ship. 

"You up for this?" he asked EDI. 

"My systems are prepared for contact with the Collector vessel, yes, Mr. Moreau," she replied. "I believe the ship's internal defenses are largely offline."

"Good," he said. "I guess it's probably more than I can ask for this to just be a get-in get-out scenario."

"We don't seem to have much experience with such missions," she agreed calmly, and he chuckled. 

"Yeah, the Commander does seem to attract trouble, doesn't she?" He watched the team's progress through Shepard's feed for a few moments, wincing as their lamps dimly illuminated the bodies of lost colonists strewn across the floor. "This is a fucking nightmare," he said quietly.

EDI flickered beside him. "Their tactics are extreme," she allowed.

"Extreme," he echoed, "yeah, that's one word for it." He shook his head. "All those colonies…"

"The areas the Collectors have been focusing on are quite removed from Tiptree, Mr. Moreau."

He startled, turning on her. " _What_?"

"Did I misinterpret your unease?" she asked calmly. "I took it to mean that you were concerned for the welfare of your family, and thought that the reminder that they are well and safe might keep your mind on the mission at hand."

"My mind's on the mission, EDI," he said shortly. "Or it was, until now. Thanks for that."

"I apologize, Mr. Moreau," she said, then seamlessly transitioned to answering Shepard on the comm. He watched as she integrated the transferred data, filtering through it, and leaned forward as she explained to Shepard about the Protheans.

"You've got to be kidding me," he breathed, scrolling through some of the data streams.

"I assure you, I do not know how to kid," EDI said. 

He watched Shepard and her team turn another corner, downloading data from another console, and he shook his head. "This isn't right," he said. "All this information just lying here, no obvious reason for the ship to be disabled…"

EDI's console flashed red. "I'm afraid I have a block preventing me from answering that question," she said.

"That wasn't a question," he said idly, then paused with his fingers on the screen and turned to look at her. She flickered blue again, and blinked steadily at him. "EDI," he said slowly, peering at her. "You know very well what a question is, and you know that wasn't one. You're trying to tell me something, aren't you?"

She blinked again, and did not respond.

He looked out the window at the curved edges of the Collector vessel, the spiked rings that had haunted his sleep for the past two years. "EDI, you have what data was able to be recovered from the original _Normandy_ 's files, don't you?"

"I do," she agreed easily.

"Run a comparison, would you? Between this ship and the one that took us out. See if you can find anything that – "

"They are the same ship, Mr. Moreau," she interrupted.

He blinked. "You knew that already, didn't you?"

"I have finished my comparison," she replied mildly. "This ship is the one you encountered over Alchera two years ago."

"Commander," he said, patching himself in over the comms. "You're going to want to hear this."

He watched their progress up the tunnel as EDI relayed the information, whistling faintly at the scope of the cavern they emerged into. The green light ahead of them was a little too friendly, a little too obvious, and the camera slowly swept from side to side as Shepard assessed the situation, trying to determine if there was another way to go about this. When she finally stepped forward to press her hand to the console, she glanced down long enough for him to see that her other hand was already on her gun.

The upload turning to static didn't surprise him. The glowing Collector bug inches from his face did.

He yelped and leaned away, punching up the _Normandy_ 's engines, ready to swoop in, grab the shuttle, and go, but the Collector flickered away nearly as soon as it had come, EDI wrestling control of the systems back and announcing, "I have regained control, please refrain from attempting to use the engines at this time. We are experiencing failure in multiple backup systems." He relayed a recap to Shepard, and EDI added, "Shepard, it was not a malfunction. This was a trap." 

"Oh, _now_ you can say it out loud?" he asked her. "Real fucking helpful."

"I cannot alter the blocks that Cerberus has placed on my functions, Mr. Moreau," she pointed out.

"Yeah, well," he said. "That's what you need me for. To harass you into giving up your secrets anyway."

She began to reply, but fell silent as the video feed lurched, and the platform carrying the team began to rise up into the vast emptiness of the cavern. Joker cursed under his breath. "A little help, here, EDI?" Shepard called, and he had the brief thought that he had never heard her ask EDI for anything directly in an emergency before. Then the other platforms soared in, and all hell broke loose.

"Here we go again," he muttered, and watched tensely for a while as Shepard, Garrus, and Jack battled off the seemingly endless wave of Collectors.

"Mr. Moreau," EDI eventually spoke up, "if we want the ship ready to depart when they have reached the shuttle – "

"Right," he agreed. "Talk to me."

They set to work rerouting systems and blocking off the low priority processes to deal with once they were airborne, all the while keeping an eye on the situation inside the Collector ship, occasionally offering vital information to the ground team. They had things almost entirely back online by the time the vessel powered up, and Joker took the _Normandy_ in a quick turn to make sure she was firing on all cylinders. 

"Nice work," he said appreciatively, glancing over at EDI. "I never thought I'd say it, but I'm glad that surge didn't take you out. I don't know that I could have gotten the old girl running again this fast on my own." He paused. "I'm not saying glowing blue orb is a good look on you, or anything. I'm just saying it's at least six steps above a creepy murderous bug creature."

"Thank you, Mr. Moreau," she said, sounding almost dryly humorous. "Now, you may want to direct your attention starboard."

"Wh - oh shit!" he replied, and swerved the _Normandy_ out of range of the incoming Collector beam. "Commander, we've got to go."

EDI let him know when the shuttle had reached the docking bay, but he didn't let himself pull away from the Collector vessel until he turned to see Shepard tearing out of the elevator and up the ship to the bridge. At the feeling of her colliding with the back of his chair, he whipped the _Normandy_ around, hauling ass away from the lumbering enemy.

Together, he and EDI took the controls, and steered their ship safely away towards the stars.  
______________

Shepard closed the door behind her as she stepped into the cockpit, and when he turned, her face was grim and resolute in a way that was only subtly different from her usual expression.

"Commander?" he prompted, and she gave him a nod, stepping forward to lean against the back of the copilot's chair and look out at the stars. 

"Those coordinates I sent you," she said, and he felt his stomach drop.

"Yeah?" he asked. "Now?"

She nodded, not looking at him. "Now."

He flew them in low and steady over Alchera, and watched the shuttle bay feed as she prepared for her descent. He didn't offer to go with her again, but just before she stepped into the shuttle, she shot a quick salute at the camera above her, so he knew that she knew he was watching. He locked the door to the cockpit as she took off, and had EDI limit his comms to emergency traffic only, opening up Shepard's helmet feed on his whole console and making the walk with her as she stepped out onto the cold quiet world on her own.

He recognized the helmet a split second before she did, and gripped his armrests, saying aloud, "Shepard, _no_ , don't – " but his comms were off, and she wouldn't have listened to him anyway, so he watched as she carefully lifted the helmet and dusted it off, and he bit the inside of his lip until it bled as her breath went ragged over the feed.

She returned to the ship in a blur, making her way from the shuttle to the elevator in record time, not even pausing to take off her helmet on the way. It was always the first thing she did – sometimes while still on the ground, way too early – since coming back to life, unwilling to stay trapped inside it any longer than strictly necessary. This time, though, she strode out of the elevator on her level with it still on, and said stiffly, "Mission accomplished, Joker. Get us the hell off this rock."

"Any bearing in particular?" he offered, and watched her punch the control to her room so hard her armor clanged painfully in his comm.

"Not here," she said curtly.

"Roger," he replied, and cut both her audio and video feeds, steering them vaguely towards the Citadel.

"Mr. Moreau, perhaps you should – "

"Do me a favor, and don't tell me what I _should_ right now, EDI," he told her. "This isn't something you get to have an opinion on."

"The _Normandy_ \- " she began, and he slammed his fist into the console in front of him harder than he should have. 

"You're not the _Normandy_ ," he snapped. He winced, pulling his hand back and rubbing at his wrist. "You don't get to speak for the _Normandy_ ," he added, quieter.

She was silent for a long moment. "Of course not, Mr. Moreau," she replied. "And, as a non-organic, I will likely never fully understand the reactions that the crew has to certain types of loss. But I _am_ equipped to recognize when the Commander is – " she paused almost tactfully, "distressed. And in some cases, you have shown to be a calming influence to her in such situations."

He laughed hollowly. "Trust me, I'm the last person she wants to see right now, EDI."

"I do not understand."

"Yeah, that's pretty clear." He rewound the footage again to watch her pick up her helmet, dust it off until her reflection shimmered back at him from the pieces of faceplate that remained. "She died out there, EDI. That's something you're never going to get." He paused the playback, looking into her eyes as she looked at the helmet, then waved a hand, shutting down the file and locking it away in one smooth motion. "I don't get it either, not really. But I was the last person she saw before – " he cut himself off and shook his head. "She doesn't want to see me."

"I believe you, Mr. Moreau." There was a pause, then, "Would you like me to encrypt that file?"

"Please," he agreed. He considered a moment, then added, "and restrict my access to it for a while, would you?"

"Understood," EDI said, and he had to offer a little bit of grudging respect to her programmers, because in that moment, it sounded almost like she meant it.  
______________

He waited Shepard out for most of the day, but when she hadn't been seen or heard from by that night, he sighed and placed a call to Riley for relief. 

"Let me know if I can be of assistance in any way," EDI offered as he left the cockpit, and he nodded toward her console. 

"I don't think _I'm_ going to be much assistance," he said, "let alone you. But thanks anyway."

He stopped by the crew deck first, to shower and change and grab some food from the mess to bring up to her. Chakwas and Gardner both toasted him with brimming glasses of wine, and when he stole into the med bay and returned with a bottle, the doctor had the presence of mind to toast him again instead of objecting.

He didn't let himself hesitate at all when he got to Shepard's deck, stepping out of the elevator and reaching up to knock lightly at the door. He could hear the muffled sound of her voice and EDI's for a few moments, and he half expected EDI to tell him that Shepard wasn't going to let him in, but eventually the door slid open.

Shepard wasn't waiting on the other side of it, so he let himself in, and carefully closed it behind him, taking in the state of her room as he went. Her armor was piled unceremoniously outside the bathroom, an untouched tray of food sitting on her desk beside her monitor, which was blinking with unread messages. 

"I'm not hungry," she told him from somewhere in the room, and he shrugged, setting his tray next to the other one – he'd suspected Gardner, but judging by the odd combination of food products, Garrus or Tali might have been more likely – and deciding to leave that fight for a later time.

He leaned around the corner and held up the bottle instead. "Doctor's orders," he said.

She looked up at him from the couch. She was tucked into the far corner of it with her hood up, a datapad abandoned against the cushions beside her, looking small and tired. She managed to give him a thin smile in response, though. "I doubt that. She doesn't allow just anyone to raid the secret bar."

He raised an eyebrow. "You really think either of us qualifies as just anyone anymore?"

She sighed. "Probably not. But she does know a couple thousand ways to kill you, and I need everyone in fighting shape."

Joker shrugged. "Dying didn't seem to stop you. Anyway, she and Gardner have broken into his private wine stock and are well on their way to spending the night under the mess table, so I don't think she's in a position to object."

She nodded grimly. "So the crew…they know where we were, then?"

"Oh, yeah," Joker told her. "They know. Most of them don't care. Or they care, but…she wasn't their ship, you know? For the rest…" He shrugged. "Well, none of them was going to be the first to talk to you about it, were they?"

"That's your job?" she guessed.

He shook his head. "Oh, I'm not here to talk about it, Commander. I’m here to drink about it."

She almost smiled. "In that case." She waved her fingers at him until he deposited the bottle in them, sinking down onto the couch beside her. She poured a healthy amount into two of the glasses on the table, and pushed one towards him. "Cheers."

He lifted it. "To the _Normandy_ ," he offered.

"And her crew," she agreed. 

They drank, and he took a moment to look around her cabin. The helmet was perched on the edge of her desk, and he carefully took his eyes off it. 

She caught him looking, and grimaced. "I left the tags with the doctor," she said. "Something about having them with me…" she shook her head. "This was mine. It's different. Hard to be a ghost when you're still here."

He just nodded, not pointing out that she'd been a ghost for two years, as far as they were all concerned. Each one of them had taken on the impossible in their own way – himself, Garrus, Tali, Liara, even Williams – maybe trying to see a little bit more of Shepard in themselves, maybe just trying to join her sooner rather than later. She'd slept through being a ghost, but that didn't mean that it hadn't happened. 

He said none of that, just drank quietly for a while, and when he started pulling out stories of some of the shenanigans they'd gotten up to on the old _Normandy_ , she joined in more readily than he'd expected, telling some stories he'd never heard before, gradually relaxing into the couch. Neither of them got anywhere near bringing up the crash, talking around it in all the ways they could, but eventually, her laughter trailing off after a story involving Alenko and Wrex trying to use Lift to drag the Mako out of a ditch she'd put it in, she set her drink on the table and looked at him, expression going serious.

"I'm glad you made it out," she said simply.

"Me too," he agreed fervently. He frowned. "I guess I never really said – "

She cut him off, waving her hand, clearly not wanting his thanks. "I asked Jacob, when I woke up, but – " she shrugged. "The details he gave me were sketchy enough that I thought I might not be getting the whole story. He said most of the crew had survived, but..."

"But you figured I was too breakable?"

She frowned at him. "You were the last one out," she said. "And I threw you into that pod pretty hard." She shrugged. "I'm glad you're here, that's all."

"Thanks, Commander," he said. "Not going to say I didn't roll out of that pod with a few pieces broken, but it was worth it." _Eventually_ , he didn't add. _Two years down the line._

She winced. "I'm – "

"If you apologize for saving my life, I swear to you, I will dump the rest of this drink over your head."

She gave him a thin smile. "Noted. It's funny, though, I saw you step out of that hologram, and do you know what my first thought was?"

"'Oh shit, not you again'?" he offered.

She half smiled, but shook her head. "It was that Cerberus had made a horrible mistake."

He felt like the ship had just dropped out from under him. "Oh," he said flatly. "Ouch, Commander." He tried to make it sound like a joke, but he knew the pain came through in his voice, and she winced visibly.

"Hear me out. If he was smart, the Illusive Man would have kept me surrounded by his people, people who had never known me before, who wouldn't notice if I was somehow...wrong." She looked up at him. "Instead, he essentially brought in a walking lie detector. I don't consider many people to be my friends, Joker. And most of the ones who do fall into that category, I'd only picked up very recently before dying. If anyone was going to notice that anything was even a little bit off..."

"It'd be me," he finished. "Or Anderson, but he's not nearly as good behind the wheel."

She nodded. "So I saw you, and I figured the game would be over before it even started. You'd take one look at me, declare me a fake, and then - what? Would they have even let either of us walk out of there alive? I doubt it. As far as I could remember, it had only been a couple hours since I'd put you in that escape pod, and I was already getting you killed."

He nodded. "Except that's not how it happened, because they didn't bring you back wrong. They just brought you _back_."

She took a sip of her drink, and looked upwards. "EDI, please enable privacy mode." 

"Logging you out, Shepard," EDI replied amiably, and Shepard set her glass down, turning her hands over slowly and looking intently at the glowing scars that traced the back of them. When she spoke, her voice was low and strained.

"How can you be so sure?" 

There it was. The doubt that had been tugging at her since they got back on board, the thing that brought her down to sit beside him silently in the cockpit at night instead of sleeping, finally put into words. He reached to place his hands over hers, covering them until she looked up at him instead. "You want a list, Commander? I think EDI's probably got a log in her files somewhere, because I've damn well been keeping track. Do you think if you even so much as fixed your coffee differently, I'd have let it slide?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "You know how I take my coffee?"

"Any way you can get it," he replied easily, "so maybe that wasn't the best example. But if you have the time to fix it the way you want when you think no one's looking, it's got half a sugar packet in there, just enough that you can pretend you're still drinking it black like the badass marine that you are."

Her expression melted into amusement tinged with surprise as she pulled her hands back and tucked them away into the pockets of her sweatshirt. "I think I'm going to need to give you more to do around here, if you have the time to notice things like that."

"Just my keen powers of observation at work," he said smugly. "The same ones that keep you and this ship of yours from crashing into things on a daily basis. Which, by the way, is enough work to keep me occupied, thank you. It was actually probably one of the smartest moves the Illusive Man made, bringing me on."

"Keen powers of observation, and humility as well," Shepard replied. "How could he possibly pass you up?"

He grinned at her, but sobered. "No, but I mean it, Commander. Bringing me into the equation was a win/win for him. Either he fucked something up, and he gets me to call it out before he releases you on the galaxy, or he didn't, and I'm one of the few people who can convince _you_ of that." 

She eyed him. "Would it have worked out like that?" she asked. "If something had gone wrong. Would you have gone to him?"

"No," he said without any hesitation. 

"What would you have done?" she asked. "If it turned out I was a threat, instead of myself?"

He watched the bubbles rising in the fishtank for a few moments. He hadn't considered it, and he didn't really want to. She had been dead, and here she was sitting beside him, warm and real and _herself_ , and any alternative was just unthinkable. "I don't know, Commander," he said finally. "Probably bring it to someone I could trust, see if there was some way we could fix whatever had gone wrong."

She looked at him speculatively. " _Is_ there anyone you trust?"

 _Just you_ , he thought, and shrugged. "Okay, bad choice of words. I'd bring it to someone _you'd_ trust – Anderson, Garrus, Tali – if I thought there was anything they could do."

"And if there wasn't?" The words were deceptively casual, but her eyes were intent on him. "If they were too far away to help, and I became a threat to the _Normandy_?"

"Jesus, Commander," he muttered, looking away from her. "What do you want from me? I've already watched you die once. That was more than enough. We've got a whole lot of dangerous people onboard this boat. If you're looking for someone to take you out if you go rogue, have you considered asking the assassin in Life Support instead of the guy who can only occasionally stand up under his own power?"

She dropped her head into her hands, scrubbing at her face and slowly sinking down until her fingers were in her hair. She stayed there for a long time, quiet, and he refilled his drink, settling back into the couch, giving her time. When she spoke, it was without lifting her head, and her voice was tired and muffled. "Miranda wanted a failsafe."

He blinked. "On you?" he asked, and she nodded against her hands.

"There was a control chip that she wanted to implant. She said the Illusive Man wouldn't let her, but..." she lifted her head and looked at him. "Well, she's not on that list of people I trust."

He breathed out a low whistle. " _Shit_ , Shepard. I mean, I can't say I'm surprised, having met these people, but _shit_." He looked at her carefully. "How long have you known?"

She smiled mirthlessly. "It was one of the first things she told me when I woke up."

"Typical Cerberus hospitality," Joker replied. "'Welcome back to the land of the living! Oh, by the way, you might be a time bomb. Good luck fighting the Collectors!'"

She almost managed a laugh at that and leaned in to retrieve her drink from the table. "Just point me towards them, and wait for the explosion."

"I think that's pretty much the strategy we're working with, yeah," he agreed. "Step 1: point Shepard at a problem. Step 2: blow shit up."

"Working for us so far," she pointed out.

"We are damn good at what we do," he agreed. She smiled and leaned back against the couch, eyes drifting closed, and he reached to take the drink from her hand and set it on the table. 

"So I take it that you're not going to run off screaming?" she asked, eyes still closed.

"Not big on running," he pointed out. "Anyway, you're what, like 40% Cerberus tech right now? The fact that you might contain a few bugs _may_ have already crossed my mind once or twice." Her eyes squinted open to inspect him, and he raised a shoulder in a shrug. "I promise, if I see you adding two sugars to your coffee, I'll sound the alarms."

She smiled appreciatively. "Sounds like a plan," she agreed. Her eyes drifted closed again, and he almost left her to fall asleep there, curled against the couch with a faint smile fading from her face, but instead he stood and took her hands, tugging until she opened her eyes.

"Your back's going to kill you if you sleep like that," he pointed out.

She lifted a shoulder. "Won't be the first thing that has," she joked, and he breathed out a laugh.

"You're funny, Commander." He pulled at her hands again, and she stretched, but didn't stand. He let go of her and backed up until his knees hit the bed, then flopped back onto it. "Fine," he said, "this is mine now. Stay there." He hadn't noticed the skylight before, but now he could look at nothing else, lying back against the covers and watching the stars drift by above him. "Wow," he said, giving a low whistle. "View's never this good from the cockpit, with all the lights."

"Pretty incredible, isn't it?" she asked. "EDI?" she called.

"Logging you back on, Shepard," EDI replied. 

"Dim everything, would you?" Shepard requested, and the cabin went suddenly dark, the light in the fishtank remaining on, but fading to a faint glow. The stars were brilliant above him, and he folded his arms behind his head and stared up at them, connecting the dots to make pictures in his mind. 

"We used to do this, back home, when I was a kid," he said. "Lay out in the fields and tell stories about the stars."

"Yeah?" she asked, sounding genuinely curious. "Sounds nice."

"You never did?" he asked. He propped himself up on an arm to look at her.

"I grew up in a city, Joker," she pointed out. "And I tended to have other priorities."

He grinned. "So what I'm getting from this is that you were _never_ any fun."

"Pretty much," she agreed. "I think N7 survival training might have been the first time I was ever anywhere dark for long enough to realize that the stars could actually look like they do in the vids." 

"Well, then, you missed out, Commander," he said. He patted the spot next to him, leaning back to lie down again, and was only a little surprised when her weight settled beside him. 

"I've seen the view," she pointed out. "I sleep here, remember?" 

"I don’t," he said. "I sleep in a pod, with Donnelly snoring next to me."

"Well, we'll just have to get you command of your own ship, then," she said. 

He laughed. "Yeah, great idea, but only if it's this one."

"Not on the table," she replied.

"Then I guess I'll stick to being the pilot," he said. They were quiet for a few moments, watching the streaks of the _Normandy's_ movement roll across the window between them and the stars. "See over there?" he asked, pointing a vague outline around some of the stars. "This is nowhere near the system where I grew up, but we had a constellation that looked pretty similar to that. It was a great story, actually – one that tiny you probably would have liked. The Incidental Warrior. She was a farmer, see, whose lands were attacked by a roving band of pirates – "

He talked quietly for a long time, feeling her sinking slowly into the bed beside him, her breath evening out, and eventually he looked over to find that she'd fallen fast asleep. He fell silent, taking in the peaceful curve of a smile on her lips, the way her eyelashes fluttered lightly as she dreamed, and startled slightly when EDI's voice sounded beside them.

"But what is the end of the story, Mr. Moreau?"

He laughed quietly. "You were listening?"

"I was," she confirmed, "and the version you were telling was slightly different from any that I could find in my databases."

He grinned. "That's because I'd forgotten most of it," he admitted. "I was making it up as I went along." He rolled off the bed and stretched, his joints popping. Shepard was curled up on top of the covers, so he retrieved the blanket that was folded up across the back of the couch to tuck around her. "'Night, Commander," he said quietly, turning for the door. Once out in the hallway, he glanced upwards as he hit the elevator button.

"You can guess the end of the story, EDI," he said.

"She lived happily ever after?" she offered.

"Kicking the ass of everything that stood in her way," he agreed.

"Are you certain this is a hypothetical story, Mr. Moreau?" she asked. 

"No," he replied. "So, what do you think? Is that a likely ending?"

"No," EDI responded. "But it is a possible one."

He nodded, thinking about Shepard asleep on her bed under the stars instead of sitting awake remembering what it felt like to die among them. "I'll take it."  
_______________

Everything hurt.

The doors to engineering closed behind him, leaving him alone in the silent hallway, and he leaned heavily against the wall. There was a quality to the air left behind after exposure to space - not quite a smell, but a _difference_ , and it had always been one of his favorite things about his spot in the cockpit, that moment when the doors to the airlock opened, and the shore party came in, carrying the universe on their armor. It was _wrong_ all the way down here, though, unfamiliar and terrifying, just another reminder of their crushing defeat at the hands of the Collectors.

"EDI, tell me the elevator's still online," he said. "There is not enough money in the Cerberus bankroll to get me back into those tunnels right now."

"The elevator is functional, Jeff," she confirmed. It pinged lightly as it opened, and he felt a wave of nausea at the spray of blood and Collector grime that coated the walls. 

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," he said, glad no one but EDI was around to hear how shaky his voice had gone. He took a deep breath and held it, then stepped in, punching the button. His eyes were watering by the time he lurched out onto the CIC deck, and he collapsed against Kelly's console, gasping for breath and trying to keep himself from retching.

"Jeff - " EDI began, sounding uncharacteristically concerned, and he held up a hand, waving her off.

"Just...give me a minute, okay?"

She was silent for a moment, then, "Of course," she agreed. 

He nodded wordlessly, dropping his head down between his arms and breathing steadily until he felt like he might be able to make it to the comm room. "ETA on the shuttle?" he asked eventually, pushing himself back up to standing and adjusting his hat on his head.

"Seven minutes," EDI replied. 

There were exposed wires sparking in the hallway, and the comm room door stuttered a few times before opening fully. "Get Tali on that as soon as they land," he suggested. "I've seen my ship in flames one too many times for this lifetime."

"Noted, Jeff," EDI replied.

"Bring up the diagnostics," he said. "Let's see what we're dealing with." He boosted himself onto the corner of the table, wincing as all of his joints protested, and started scrolling through the ship's vitals. 

"Integral systems are intact but damaged," EDI began, and together, they filtered through the schematics, prioritizing repairs until EDI interrupted with, "Shepard is on deck."

Joker closed his eyes. "Thanks, EDI," he said. "Odds of her shooting me on sight?"

"Slim to none, Jeff."

"How about Miranda?"

"I will not take that bet."

He might have managed a laugh at that, if Shepard hadn't burst into the room at just that moment. Her brow was furrowed with more worry than he'd ever seen there, her breath quick and uneven, and she crossed the room in a few strides, stepping directly into the space in front of him and saying his name in a tone somewhere between _how could you let this happen?_ and _thank fuck you're alive_. He was overwhelmed for a brief second by the need to touch her, to prove that this was real, and happening, and that maybe together they'd be able to pick up the pieces. He pressed his hands to the edge of the table instead, holding on until his fingers ached, and managed to contain his surprise when she was the one to reach out to him, a brief press of her hand to his face that made all the breath rush out of him at once.

"Commander," he said, his voice unexpectedly steady, and she stepped back with a nod, the fleeting moment of concern melting away into professionalism. "They took them alive, and the _Normandy_ 's still standing, thanks to EDI. We can get them back."

"We will," she told him. "Start from the beginning." 

"EDI?" he prompted, and the ship's schematics lit up between them. "As far as we can figure," he began, and together he and EDI began to fill in the gaps in each other's accounts, the three of them gathering around the ship's designs, slowly formulating a plan.  
_______________

He shifted from foot to foot in the empty hallway, staring at the green light of Shepard's door until EDI prompted him, "Jeff? Would you like me to alert Shepard of your presence?"

There was a part of him that wanted exactly the opposite, that wanted to hide away and never look her in the face again. But it had been her order that had left EDI in control of the ship as they made their way towards the relay, expecting him to rest, which was never going to happen unless…

"Is she awake?" he asked.

"She is," EDI confirmed. "She has just emerged from the shower."

He'd done the same when he'd left the bridge, standing under the hot water for too long and letting the Collector grime wash away down the drain, leaning heavily there against the cool tiles and trying not to keep a running tally of the people he'd lost. He wondered if that's what she was thinking of as she showered too.

"Yeah, go ahead, EDI," he said belatedly. "Ask her if – "

He didn't quite finish the sentence before the door pinged and slid open in front of him. "Joker," Shepard said, striding forward, still tying her dripping hair up into a ponytail. She crossed to him with intent, and for a fleeting second he imagined that she was about to slam him back into the bulkhead, beat the shit out of him like he so richly deserved. Instead, she stopped directly in front of him, looking him over with something like concern, and said, "I thought I told you to get some rest."

"I…" he began, but let the words fade out as he returned her appraisal. "You look like shit."

She let out an unexpected laugh. "You're one to talk," she said, and when she reached for him, it was smooth and efficient, not violent at all, leading him out of the hallway and letting the door whoosh closed behind them.

It was quiet in her cabin. He hadn't noticed before how muffled the engines sounded, how still the motion of the ship felt. It was soothing, but somehow disconcerting, being unable to hear and feel the _Normandy_ 's life in the same way he could everywhere else on the ship. At her raised eyebrows, he shrugged, waving a hand at the cabin. "It's quiet," he said by way of explanation.

She nodded grimly. "Whole ship is," she agreed. He flinched, and she waved a hand at the couch, waiting until he sat carefully before she joined him. He ached all over, and sitting was more of a relief than he wanted to let her see. "I'd offer you a drink, but, well." She shrugged, and he managed a faint smile.

"What, you don't trust me to fly the old girl through the relay drunk and tired?"

"I'd trust you to do it blindfolded with one hand tied behind your back," she replied without hesitation, "but I feel like we probably need every advantage we can get." She eyed him. "Speaking of. I made you leave the bridge because I expected you to get some sleep. Not…do whatever it is you're doing here."

"Commander." He let his head drop into his hands, not able to look at how tired and haunted her eyes looked above her faintly glowing scars. "I'm – "

"I swear to god, Lieutenant, if you finish that sentence with an apology, it'll be the last thing you ever say. I don't need you able to speak to fly this ship."

"Yes, ma'am," he said dully. She was quiet for a long moment, and there was a part of him that wanted to pull away when he felt her hand land lightly against his back, below his neck, but instead he let his head collapse further and closed his eyes, leaning into her touch as she lightly pressed out some of the tension there.

"Joker…" she began finally, but he lifted his head, cutting her off.

"Not now," he said. "Just…not now, okay?"

She met his eyes and nodded. "Okay," she agreed. "But you deserve a fucking medal."

He snorted a laugh. "I deserved a fucking medal after the Citadel, Commander. For this? A court martial might be more appropriate."

Her expression was pained, but she just nodded carefully and repeated, "Not now," as she patted his back and pulled her hand away. He half wanted to hear her objection to his classification of the situation, for her to remind him that there was a way to look at it where it wasn't entirely his fault, where it was hers, too, for taking the fight-ready crew and leaving, or where it was neither of theirs at all. But the loss of the first _Normandy_ was still too raw, and the crew's lives were still hanging in the balance, and there were too many things that were just going to have to wait. "We'll get them back," she said instead, steady and reassuring, and he found that even after everything, he was incapable of not believing her.

"Damn right, we will," he agreed.

She settled back against the couch cushions and sighed, and he took in the darkness under her eyes, the stark contrast of her scars against her skin. "I should let you get some sleep," he offered. "I just wanted – " he let the words fade out, not sure that _wanted_ was the right word for what had compelled him to head for her cabin instead of his bunk.

She laughed hollowly. "I'm not going to sleep, Joker. I'm going to sit here and think up all the millions of ways this thing could go wrong. Doesn't that sound like a better use of my time?" 

He smiled at that. "Infinitely," he agreed.

She returned the smile, tipping her head against the back of the couch and looking at him questioningly. "I have to say, I'm a little surprised that you showed up here. I thought maybe…there'd be somewhere else you'd rather be right now?"

He blinked slowly. "Like drinking myself into a puddle under the mess table?" he suggested. "No thanks, Commander. I don't fold up that well anymore. Never did, really."

"Like with EDI?" she suggested, looking at him out of the corner of her eye with a sly half smile.

He returned her look, refusing to get flustered. "I _am_ with EDI," he pointed out. "We _always_ are," he added, trying for grim and ending up somewhere closer to fond exasperation instead.

"That is correct, Jeff," EDI's voice spoke up, "but I believe what Shepard was referring to - "

"I'm refusing to acknowledge what she was referring to, EDI," he cut her off. "But thanks."

Shepard raised her eyebrows. "That's new," she said, eyeing Joker. " _Jeff_."

He made a face. "Yeah, well, she got all _worried_ about me during the attack or something."

"Can't imagine why," Shepard said dryly. "None of the rest of us were."

"Thanks, Commander. Really feeling the love." 

She smiled, curling up on herself against the couch cushions, and he couldn't help but take in how young she suddenly looked, her face scrubbed clean and her hair tied back, wearing a thin pair of workout pants and a tank top, folded up in a protective ball with a wall behind her and one of the few people she trusted beside her. _Blindfolded with one hand tied behind your back_ , his mind echoed, and he let himself stretch out beside her, leaving his hat where it fell as it slipped off his head.

"What do you say?" he offered. "Want to sit here and think about the millions of ways this thing could go wrong together for the next couple hours?"

"Statistically speaking," EDI offered, " _millions_ may in fact be an understatement."

Shepard let out a laugh that sounded almost real. "Well, then we have plenty to keep us occupied," she said.

He hadn't intended to sleep, but something about the quiet of her cabin and the solid warmth of her body beside him lulled him into closing his eyes, and he woke to the feeling of her fingers curling lightly into his hair, and the sound of EDI's voice informing both of them that it was time. He sat up and stretched, each joint in his body protesting, and when he met Shepard's eyes, they were a little clearer, a little less haunted than they had been when he arrived. 

"You ready for this?" she asked him.

"I was born for this," he said with a cocky grin, just to get a little half smile out of her. "The question is, are _you_ ready to see a master at work?"

She picked up his hat and studied it. "You know, I don't know if this is going to fit on that big head of yours anymore. I might need to keep it." She set it on her head, tucking her ponytail underneath, and stood, stretching as she headed for her armor locker. He opened his mouth to make some sort of snarky comment, but his sleep-addled brain produced nothing, and instead he took in the sight of her efficiently gathering her things out of the locker, bending and twisting in her thin workout clothes with his hat perched on her head, and he sleepily thought that if these were some of his last few minutes of existence, it was a damn good way to spend them. She cast a look at him over her shoulder and smiled, pulling the hat off and tossing it back to him, landing it neatly in his lap. "Wouldn't fit under my helmet," she pointed out. "Guess you'll have to hold onto it."

He settled it back onto his head and stood. "I'll let you – " he gestured toward the armor. "I should get some coffee, too. You know, before." 

She nodded and turned back to her things, and he was almost to the door when she said, "Hey. Joker." He turned, but she was busy checking the scope on her Widow, and didn't look up at him. "Thanks."

"Thank me when it's over," he said, and left the room before giving her time to point out that she might not get that chance.  
______________

The cockpit was dark and quiet, and he stood at the doorway for a long moment, drinking his coffee and watching the stars roll by.

"Calm before the storm, huh, EDI?" he asked, taking his seat, and the hologram blinked slowly at him.

"I understand the metaphor," she said, "but I do not know that I would classify this moment as 'calm.' I am currently performing approximately 18,000 processes in preparation for the relay jump." 

"Same," he agreed, leaning back in his chair. "Most of mine fall under the heading of 'panic,' though."

"Are you afraid, Jeff?" If there had been any sympathy in the question, he'd have made some joke, laughed it off, but all he could hear in her voice was genuine curiosity. 

"Yeah, EDI," he replied. "I'm fucking terrified." He eyed her console. "Aren't you?"

"I do not experience emotion in the way that you do," she said.

"Well, _that's_ an understatement."

"I do, however, feel a deep level of concern for the wellbeing of this ship, its commander and crew, and for you. The probability of our success is not great, but the possibility does exist, and I am considering the options for this possible outcome more often than for scenarios in which we fail, even though those scenarios are more probable." She paused long enough that he thought she might have turned her attention back to her 18,000 tasks, but as he pulled up the steering diagnostics, she added, "I am not certain, but I believe this may be what organics refer to as 'hope.'"

He was still trying to think of an answer to that when Shepard strode onto the bridge, Miranda close at her heels. "How are we looking?" she asked.

He glanced over his shoulder and sized them up. "Fabulous, as usual, Commander," he cracked, earning himself an annoyed look from both of them. "I'm liking that armor. The blue really brings out your eyes."

"How _do_ you work with him?" Miranda asked Shepard, who shrugged.

"With difficulty." She took her spot at his shoulder, looking down at the controls. "Status report?" she requested.

"She's good to go, Commander. Ready to hit the relay on your mark."

"EDI?" she asked, and a few weeks ago he would have lost his shit at her giving the final go ahead to the AI instead of him, but this time, he just looked over at EDI, letting the ship have her say.

"All systems are functioning optimally, Shepard. If we are to perform this strike, now would be an ideal time."

"Hear that, Joker?" Shepard asks. "EDI says our timing is ideal."

"Ideal," he repeated. "Yeah, that's the word I'd go with for all this."

"If you're done fooling around," Miranda began, and Shepard looked over at her.

"I give the orders on this ship."

"Then I suggest you do so."

"Joker?" Shepard prompted.

"Yes, ma'am," he responded crisply, half just to see how hard Miranda scrutinized him for sincerity.

"Take us through."

He punched the controls, and spared a glance over at EDI's console. "Let's do this, girl," he said, and for the first time, he wasn't quite sure if he was talking to the _Normandy_ , or to her.  
______________

"Go kick some ass, Commander. We've got this." The words had come easily, but watching her round up her squad and disappear into the dark tunnels of the Collector base was one of the hardest things he'd ever done.

They'd worked together seamlessly to get the ship repaired, his hands and EDI's schematics, and he found himself wondering if things might have ended differently for the SR-1 if she'd been onboard. Their liftoff from the crash site was tentative, but successful, and seeing Mordin troop onboard with Dr. Chakwas and the rest of the crew was the kind of victory he had barely let himself hope for.

Shepard's feed stayed live in the corner of his screen, and he found himself yelling along instructions to her and her team as they faced down the human reaper. 

"Would you like me to open your channels?" EDI offered after a while, and he glared at her until she added, "Perhaps you did not intend your suggestions to be of use."

"Joker," he finally heard Shepard's voice saying, crackling with static, terse and breathless. "Extraction."

"I see you, Commander," he replied. "We're on our way."

As they pulled in towards the dropoff point, he pushed himself up from his chair. "You got this, EDI?" he asked. 

"I do," she replied, "but what are you doing?"

He hoisted one of the guns that someone had been considering taking with them and left discarded by the copilot's chair, grimacing until he got it adjusted just right. "She's all yours," he said, and pressed a hand to the door. "And I swear to god," he added, "if you tell me the airlock is ajar, I'm gonna get Legion to disable you." The door hissed open, and he grabbed the handle beside it to keep steady as they swooped in towards the extraction site.

"Be careful, Jeff," EDI said instead, and he felt his face go hot with embarrassment.

"Seriously?" he asked. "That's what I get? Not _give 'em hell, Jeff_ , or _you're a badass, Jeff_?"

"You're a badass, Jeff," EDI replied dryly, and he was still laughing when he saw them emerge from the base at full speed, Garrus first, with Grunt and Shepard close behind him. 

"Come on," he said under his breath, leaning out the airlock to cover them, taking out one of the Collectors, then another. "Run, you fuckers."

He pressed against the bulkhead to let Garrus and Grunt leap in, and took out a couple more Collectors over Shepard's head. She didn't hesitate, but the _Normandy_ jerked beneath his feet, and he cursed sharply. "Hold _still_ , EDI!" he yelled, but Shepard was already in the air, flying towards them with her limbs flailing, and for a moment he saw it all happening again, her slipping away from them right there with her eyes on him, just like she had two years before. 

Instead, she landed with a crash, the armor of her arms clasping onto the edge of the platform, Garrus kneeling down to haul her up, and they fell back into a tangle on the floor as Joker slammed the door and rushed back to the helm. "Hold on," he called over his shoulder, "it's going to be a bumpy ride." He ran his hands over the console, seamlessly taking control back from EDI, and gunned the engines. "Come on, girl," he said quietly. "Bring us home." The blast rocked the ship, but the engine flared as the sky around them went orange, and they sailed away towards the stars.

He steered them back through the graveyard, ships careening around them, rocked by the blast, and somewhere along the way, he felt Shepard taking up her place at his shoulder, having extracted herself from Garrus to stand on wobbly legs and hold onto the back of his chair. She was urging the ship on as well, her words too low for him to hear, but he could feel her there, a steady presence behind him, and when they hit the relay, her hand dropped to his shoulder, holding on, grounding him.

"EDI?" he said quietly. 

"Shields holding," she replied evenly, "drive core overheating but stable, hull integrity intact. High probability of successful relay jump."

He groaned. "I've _got_ to teach you about jinxes when we get back to Council space," he said. "You are a bad luck charm to us all."

He relinquished control to the jump, keeping one hand hovering near the console, but letting the other fall to rest on top of Shepard's, pressing against it and holding on tighter than he probably should have. The sudden fall of silence as they burst out of the relay back into their home space was jarring and final, and he found himself holding his breath in anticipation of the next disaster. It wasn't until Grunt let out a whoop and turned to joyfully headbutt Garrus that he let out a laughing breath and curled down over his injured ribs. 

"Holy _fuck_ , Commander," he gasped out, looking up over his shoulder at her. "We did it."

"Hell _yeah_ , we did," she replied fiercely, leaning over him in a not-quite hug and pressing her face close to his ear to whisper, " _Now_ I get to thank you." Her lips pressed to his cheek lightly and briefly, but enough to make his face flame up with warmth, and then her hands were on his shoulders, tugging him to his feet and steering him towards the door. "Med bay, _now_ ," she insisted.

"But – Commander!" he protested, and she glared at him.

"That's an order."

"You never let me have any fun at all."

"I just let you drive our asses to the end of the universe and back, Joker. Tell me that wasn't fun."

"Okay, it was a little fun," he allowed. 

"Impressive flying," Garrus said, clapping him on the shoulder on his way out of the cockpit, and Joker managed to hide his wince until the door shut between them. 

"Impressive indeed," EDI agreed. 

He stood there in the hallway and looked up at the ceiling, grinning like an idiot. "EDI, you were _amazing_ out there," he said. "If I wouldn't go straight through that hologram of yours, I swear to god, I would kiss you right now. I take back like 75% of all the awful things I said about you when we started this thing."

"And the other 25%?" she asked in what he was beginning to recognize as her amused voice.

"Oh, those, I stand by." He grinned at nothing for a few moments until he heard Shepard thump on the door behind him.

"Are you moving?" she yelled, and he chuckled to himself.

"Sorry, Joker's not here!" he called back, and shuffled off towards the med bay, enjoying the sounds of the crew settling back into their lives around him.  
______________

The celebration was in full swing by the time Chakwas let him leave the med bay, spilling out of Kasumi's observation deck into the mess, and he let himself get pulled aside and toasted by a few different groups as he passed through, relieved to see the _Normandy_ loud and alive despite the charred reminders of the past few days around them. Repairs would have to wait until everyone had fully grasped that they had made it.

He found Garrus and Tali by the bar, mixing each other drinks of increasingly more horrible-smelling dextro stuff, and he grabbed his own drink, hovering and listening to Garrus's account of a particularly beautiful killshot on one of the Harbinger-possessed Collectors until he couldn't wait any longer and leaned in to Tali.

"She's not here, is she?" he asked quietly.

Tali shook her head. "She was for a while," she said. "But I think she went upstairs." He nodded his thanks, clapped Garrus on the back in congratulations, and grabbed another drink on his way to the elevator. He could hear her talking to EDI from the other side of the door when he arrived on her deck, and listened to the familiar echo of their voices for a few moments before looking up and asking, "How's she doing?"

Instead of replying, EDI slid the door to Shepard's cabin open, and Joker hesitated outside it.

"You know," Shepard was saying, "the first time I boarded an Alliance vessel, I swore I would never step foot on Earth again."

"I do know that, Shepard."

"That was rhetorical, EDI."

"Noted."

"Thinking of setting a course for Earth, Commander?" Joker asked, stepping into the room, and Shepard looked up from her desk, where she was fiddling with her model of the SR-1. She let her fingers fall away from it, and took the drink he offered her with a grateful smile. "Didn't feel like celebrating?" he offered.

"I celebrated," she objected. "It's just…there are a lot of people on this boat, now that we've got all of them back."

"Hope that's not a complaint," Joker said, grinning and leaning back against the empty fishtank.

"Never," she replied. "But…" she hesitated. "God, is it a cliché to say that I'm tired?"

"You'd _better_ be tired," Joker replied. "If you weren't, I'd be a little concerned that Miranda had actually turned you into a robot in that lab of hers."

"How's the – " she gestured at his ribs, then waved her hand to include the rest of him. "Everything?"

"Patched up, more or less," he said. 

She frowned. "What's the less?"

"I got a little broken. That's what they made MediGel for, though, right? I should hold stock in the stuff."

She winced. "I'm sorry, Joker."

"Not your fault," he said. "Also, worth it."

"I'm going to see to it you get that medal this time," she said, and he laughed.

"You might have to get me reinstated first," he pointed out.

"I might have to get _me_ reinstated first," she countered.

"Point. That why we're headed to Earth?"

"We're not." She stood, nodding toward the couch, and he followed her down the stairs, watching appreciatively as she practically melted into the cushions, then patted the seat next to her. He settled down into it, setting his drink on the table and looking at her, taking in all the changes the mission had brought to her face and body, leaning back into the cushions and looking satisfied and drained, rather than on the brink of defeat.

"We don't have a bearing right now," she said. "I don't know if you noticed."

He nodded. "I did. I thought maybe you were letting the crew get all this out of their systems before we hit land."

"More or less," she agreed.

He eyed her carefully. "What's the less?" he asked, turning her words back on her, and she smiled faintly at the ploy.

"We're not going to be greeted as heroes, Joker. Not you and I, at least. The others…most of them weren't Alliance to begin with, and none of them have – " she cut herself off and looked at him intently. "How closely do you monitor my feed?"

He felt his face heat up. "Pretty closely," he admitted.

"The Kenson mission?" she prompted. 

"You were alone on that one," he said. At her questioning glance, he clarified, "That means I watched every second."

"Then you know…" she trailed off, and he nodded. He'd watched her return from that mission, had seen the way she'd retreated to her cabin, silent and worn afterwards, drifting around the ship like a ghost until the next mission hit, joining him in the cockpit and staring out at the stars, saying nothing.

"I know," he said. He let a hand fall against the back of her neck, like she'd done with him before the relay, and she let it happen, leaning into his fingers and closing her eyes. When she pulled away, her expression was a little clearer, but no less serious.

"I'm going to be arrested, Joker. You might too. I want to drop the crew off somewhere safe before then. Ilium, maybe. See if Liara can call in some favors to get them all wherever they need to go." She hesitated, looking at him. "You could leave then, if you want." He started to shake his head, but she held up a hand. "Hear me out. I have no intention of leaving the _Normandy_ in the hands of the Illusive Man. That means one of two things. Either I keep her, and turn her into the Alliance as a good faith gesture – "

He stared at her. "Or what? You leave her with me to go rogue?"

"There are worse things that could happen to both of you," she pointed out. "Look, the Batarians are going to want my head. The Alliance won't cave to them on that, but I'll absolutely have to serve some time to head off a full out war. As for you – " she shrugged. "You joined Cerberus, Joker. I don't know what your missions were, before they brought me back, but I imagine most of them were probably not Alliance sanctioned. If I turn the _Normandy_ in, you're going to have to go through official channels to get her back. This doesn't have to be your fight."

He laughed hollowly. "In what universe," he asked, "is any fight you ever take on not going to be my fight too?"

She caught his eyes and held them, and this time he anticipated her leaning in, expected the press of her lips against his, but it still sent a thrill through him, the warm press her skin, the faint taste of her, the barely harnessed strength of her fingers on his face. He reached for her, resting his hand against her waist and holding on lightly until she pulled back, the smile that tugged at her lips looking halfway between teasing and embarrassed.

"You're a fucking dumbass," she told him, and he grinned at her, squeezing his fingers against her side until she squirmed out of his grasp.

"I have to concur," EDI chimed in, and Joker tipped his head back against the sofa and groaned. 

"Tell me you haven't been there the whole time," he said.

"Of course I have, Jeff," she said. "Shepard and I were discussing our options before you came in."

" _Our_ options," he repeated. "For turning you in for the Alliance to dismantle, or setting you loose on the galaxy."

"Those are the most likely scenarios, yes," EDI agreed.

"And did you have an opinion on the matter?" he asked.

"I don't have opinions, Jeff. I come to reasoned conclusions based on the data that is provided to me."

He sighed, exchanging a look with Shepard. "So?" he prompted. "What conclusion have you reached?"

"Shepard is my commander," EDI said. "I trust that whatever decision she comes to will benefit the crew in the way she intends."

"That's…incredibly vague."

"Put simply, Jeff, I don't care."

He looked at Shepard. "You can't give her to them."

"I know."

He sighed and reached for his drink. "This isn't my call to make, Shepard," he said. "I run off with her, and we leave you at the mercy of the Alliance and the Council. I turn myself in with you, and we lose her."

"I know," she repeated.

"Then – " he began.

"That's what we were discussing," she interrupted. "Before you came in. With EDI unshackled, there's the potential for…" she hesitated, glancing upwards. "Deception."

Joker raised his eyebrows. "She can lie?"

"She can lie," Shepard confirmed. "It doesn't save either of us from serving whatever time is dealt to us – "

"But it might ensure that EDI and the _Normandy_ are pretty much intact when we get back to them." He leaned back against the couch, eyeing the room speculatively. "How much would this demand of you, EDI?" he asked. "How long could you maintain it?"

"Indefinitely," she responded immediately. "And it would require very few of my resources."

"I know you don't have opinions," he said, "but how does this sound to you?"

"Favorable," she replied. "I would do my best to protect the _Normandy_ in your absence, and once your time was served, you would both be allowed to return to service aboard her with few strings attached."

Shepard chuckled. "Okay, so she hasn't had many dealings with the Alliance," she allowed. "She'll learn about the strings. But other than that…"

"Other than that," Joker allowed, "it's not the craziest plan I've ever heard."

"No," she agreed, "that would probably be bringing a team through the Omega 4 relay to take out the Collectors."

"And look how that turned out."

She shook her head. "You're completely fucking nuts, has anyone ever told you that?"

"The Alliance," he pointed out. "A few times." 

"And you're all set to give them another crack at you," she said. She shook her head and closed her eyes. "Joker…"

He reached out to take her hand, looking down at it instead of at her as he said, "Shepard, you died." The words were harsh, and he felt her fingers twitch against his at them, but she didn't pull away. "You died, and I _let_ them take all those cracks at me, because what else was I going to do? I wasn't built to become a vigilante, like Garrus, or given a community to go back to, like Tali. All I ever had was flying, and the _Normandy_. Without that…" he shrugged. "That's all there is, Shepard. To give it up again…that's not any kind of a life. Not for me."

"There's still the possibility that they never return you to flight status," she pointed out, taking her hand back.

He lifted a shoulder. "So once you get all this noble bullshit out of the way, _then_ we go rogue. You, me, and the _Normandy_. Wouldn't be the first time I stole her out from under their noses."

"I thought you weren't built to be a vigilante?" she said.

"Not with a gun in my hand, maybe," he agreed. "But with this girl?" He patted the back of the couch affectionately. "I'm built to be whatever you need me to be."

She smiled. "Yeah, it's probably best if you lay off the guns. That was some stunt you pulled at the Collector base."

He shrugged. "Just once, I wanted to swoop in like the hero, guns blazing, and save the day."

"Joker, you do that every other mission," she reminded him.

"Literal guns, Shepard. The kind I don't have to rely on EDI to shoot for me."

"Perhaps you should consider allowing me to do so in the future, Jeff," EDI suggested. "Your grasp on the finer points of firearms usage is suboptimal."

"Everyone's a critic," he muttered. "I took out at least half a dozen of those fuckers."

"Technically, I believe it was a third of a dozen," EDI corrected him. "And 'took out' may be a generous term."

"My _ribs_ were broken!" he reminded her.

"Which made it a _great_ idea to pick up a gun," Shepard pointed out. She frowned at him. "You know, we've been doing this a long time. I'd like to think we're past the point where you feel like you have to prove yourself."

He shook his head. "I wasn't proving anything," he said. "You heard EDI, I would've had trouble nailing those Collectors if they'd all been shaped like a damn barn door. I just had to _be_ there." He shrugged. "There's a lot of hurry up and wait involved in my job, and after everything we'd gone through to get to that point, I couldn't just _wait_ to see who ended up tumbling through my door." _If anyone,_ he didn't add, but he knew by the way her eyes darted past him to the battered helmet on her desk that she heard it anyway.

"I get that," she said. "Just try a little harder not to get yourself killed next time, okay?"

He snorted. "Coming from you? Yeah, _okay_."

" _Joker._ " He'd been hoping for at least a little amusement, but instead she just sounded exhausted. She looked away from him, shaking her head, and he was still trying to come up with something to add to soften the words when she said quietly, "I don't think I could do this without you."

He caught his breath at the raw honesty in her voice. _Bullshit,_ was his immediate response, _you can do anything,_ but he held it back, something about her candor making him think better of the flippant reply. Instead, he reached to turn her face back towards him and waited for her eyes to flicker almost defiantly up to meet his before he said, "Welcome to the last two years of my life."

She swallowed, and he could tell she wanted to look away, but her gray eyes stayed steadily on his. "You don't mean that."

He laughed bitterly. "Don't tell me what I mean, Shepard. You can go ahead and _think_ you couldn't do it alone all you like. Me? I've got the cold hard facts to prove it."

He had spent a lot of years not letting himself think about kissing her, but even in the brief moments when he'd been too tired or too horny or too fucking broken to care, it had never been like this. His hand on her face sliding to the back of her neck, feeling the ends of her hair curling there beneath her ponytail, leaning in without any hesitation at all to catch her lips with his. It was fierce and frantic, with an edge of desperation that was exactly what he'd expected from her, but the slow careful way she maneuvered herself to kneel beside him and press him lightly back into the cushions was surprising in how clearly it was tailored to _him_. He'd expected her to be rough, to be holding herself back at every turn, but instead he was the one pushing for more, sliding his fingers up into her hair, dislodging her hairtie and leveraging her down against him, needing the press of her skin, the taste of her mouth against his.

She broke off kissing him to gasp for breath, and he half expected her to pull back, compose herself, laugh it off as a terrible idea, but instead she was bracing herself against the back of the couch, slinging a leg over his lap, and looking down at him questioningly, waiting for his nod and the solid press of his hands to her waist before she settled lightly against him, the muscles in her legs working as she held herself above him. He let out a shaky breath, instantly getting hard and kissing her again, letting out a low noise as she dropped her mouth to his throat and worked her teeth against the skin there.

"EDI," she said quietly, lifting her head, and he groaned in protest at the loss of her lips. "Shut everything down. Comms, vid feeds, elevator, all of it."

"Already done, Shepard," EDI assured her. "Also, I should perhaps let you know that Jeff's vitals indicated a particular interest in being on his knees for someone, when I suggested such a thing earlier."

Shepard's laugh was sudden and delighted, making her shift enticingly against him, and he groaned again, letting his head fall back against the couch. "Are you fucking kidding me right now, EDI?"

"It seemed like the kind of information that might be relevant to share at this point in time," EDI replied without any hint of remorse, and he leaned forward, tucking his overheated face into the crook of Shepard's shoulder and neck, pressing his lips there lightly and feeling her shake with laughter.

She slid her hands up to rake her fingers into his hair, dropping his hat to the side, and tilted his head back until she could meet his eyes. She raised an eyebrow, amusement warring with frank interest in her expression, and all at once, all he could think about was sinking to his knees there in front of the couch, pressing his mouth to her, getting her off again and again with her fingers in his hair and her legs draped over his shoulders.

" _Fuck_ , Shepard," he breathed. "I…" He almost let his desire win out, but she shifted against him, and his whole body protested, and he had to shake his head. "I'm so fucking beat up right now," he said. "I don't think…" A brief flicker of concern crossed her face, and he tightened his fingers against her hips. "We're good," he said quickly. "Here, like this. But I think knees might be a little beyond my current capabilities." 

"You'll have to owe me one, then," she said easily, and he was pretty sure he did a terrible job at keeping the surprise from his face at the thought that this might not be a one time we-just-kicked-the-Collectors'-asses thing. "Alternately," she said, and pulled back from him. He reached for her, but she stood, stretching and looking down at him with a half smile. "I've got a bed."

"You do," he agreed, turning to eye it. "It's a very nice bed."

"And I've so far only managed to put it to one of its intended uses." She paused. "Well, with anyone else, anyway."

He felt his face heat up at the thought of her sprawled out on the bed, touching herself, getting herself off, maybe while he was right beneath her flying, maybe just before she came padding downstairs in her pajamas to curl up in the copilot's chair beside him. "You're trying to make me completely unable to fly this ship ever again, aren't you?" he asked her. "It's highly likely that I'm not even going to be able to see the controls over my boner from now on."

She laughed. "Then I guess it's a good thing that you're probably going to be getting a nice long vacation," she said, and leaned down to take his hands, pulling him to his feet.

He stood carefully, readjusting for a moment and taking in the sight of her, hair rumpled from his hands, eyes bright and wanting, fingers tangled into his, ready to drag him across the room to the bed once he'd regained his balance, and he couldn't help reaching out to touch her face, leaning in to kiss her lightly, taking a moment to marvel at how completely fucking upside down his life had flipped in the past day or so.

"Hey," she said against his lips, and he could feel the smile in the word. 

"I have to say, this is not how I saw this day ending, the last time we were here," he told her, letting her guide him to the bed.

"No?" she asked. "Because I saw you watching me put my armor on. Don't tell me you weren't thinking about it."

He grinned and let a hand slip down her side, tracing the line of her body. "I'm not saying I wasn't admiring the view," he admitted. "This is…a slightly different outcome than I was expecting, though."

She stepped into his space, fitting herself to him, and her face was serious when their eyes met again. "You didn't think we were going to make it out," she said.

He raised his eyebrows. "Did you?"

"Honestly? I didn't let myself think about it. I couldn't. I had you and EDI to think about the logistics, plan the escape route. My mission was to get in there, and see that none of the Collectors made it out. Getting back was…"

He swallowed. "Not a priority?" he guessed.

"Not a high one." He gathered her into his arms, and she let her forehead drop to his shoulder. They stood like that for a long time, silent and unmoving in the dim glow of her cabin. "It's not going to end, you know," she said eventually. "It's just going to get worse, after. I held them off for a while, with the Batarians, but…"

"I know," he said quietly, and tried not to feel how suddenly breakable she felt, pressed against him small and insignificant in the face of the threat ahead of them. "We'll be ready, though."

She choked out a laugh. "You don't really believe that."

"Okay, no, I don't," he allowed. "But we'll _get_ ready."

"I don't know if I'm – " she began, and he cut her off with a shake of his head.

"Bullshit," he broke in, glad he'd saved this line for a moment when it was needed. "You can do anything. And for whatever you can't? You've got me. You've got EDI, and the _Normandy_ , and you've got a crew of some of the finest badasses this galaxy has ever seen." She nodded, lifting her chin, straightening like the steel she was made of, and he smiled, reaching to curl his fingers into the edges of her hair. "But we've got some time, before all that."

"A little bit, yeah," she allowed. 

"Enough for this," he said, nodding at the bed, "and for a hell of a lot of sleep. And maybe for us to make things right with the Alliance again, get our ship back the legitimate way."

"Maybe," she agreed. "And after that?"

He shrugged. "After that, I guess we go back to what we're good at. Saving the universe one mission at a time." He leaned in to kiss her, slow and sure, backing her up towards the bed. "Right now, though," he said, "I think you had a plan that involved a minimum of me being on my knees, and a maximum of me doing things that are best done in that position."

She breathed out a laugh. "Joker," she began, and he settled down against the edge of the bed, pressing his hands to the curve of her waist, just above the edge of her pants. He let his thumb brush the skin there under the hem of her shirt, and watched the way she shivered at his touch. She met his eyes, and for a split second, he thought she was going to step aside and wave him out, tell him this had all been a mistake. Instead, she reached for his wrists, pushing his hands downwards until they were peeling off her pants, leaving her standing there in front of him half naked and restless in the way she always was. It was such a little thing, the slight sway from one side to the other, but it reminded him all over again that this was _Shepard_. She reached to touch his shoulder, pushing him lightly back onto the bed, and crawled over him, leaning carefully above him without putting any weight against him, kissing him until he couldn't breathe without gasping against her lips, and then her fingers were wrapping around his wrists again, dragging them over his head as she crawled up the bed and knelt over him. She hesitated briefly, pinning his hands carefully and looking down at him. He returned her look across the long smooth lines of her body, and leaned up to press his mouth against her.

She was quiet, but not silent, her fingers loose around his wrists, her breath ragged and uneven, letting out low noises when he pressed his tongue to her, bit lightly. He twisted his wrists in her grasp, wanting to touch her, to wrap his fingers around her hips, but her grip on him was just firm enough to keep him from pulling away, and the feeling of her holding him there steady as she came against him was pretty much the hottest thing that had ever happened to him. 

He got her off again before she was rolling off of him, laughing breathlessly, and he took in the sight of her spread out there against the bed, careless and relaxed, giving him the same smile he always saw over his shoulder – complete trust, and a healthy dose of fond exasperation. She reached to wrap a hand around him immediately, and he arched up into her fingers, gasping out something incoherent.

"You _did_ enjoy that," she said with a grin, and she kept her eyes on him as she jerked him off so fucking slowly at first, making him push his hips up off the bed for more, then speeding up, watching his reactions, until he couldn't watch her anymore, could just close his eyes and press his face into the sheets and come into her warm grip with the taste of her still on his lips.

She stretched out beside him afterward, flinging a careless arm across his waist and murmuring, "Lights, EDI."

The lights dimmed until the room was lit only by the glow of the fishtank, and when Shepard propped her head up on an arm to look at him, the outline of her scars was barely visible in the almost-darkness. "I'm going to sleep for a thousand years," she said.

"Yeah?" he asked. "You might want to rethink that one. I mean, unless you want to sleep through the Reaper invasion. Not that I would judge you for that, actually. Sounds like a pretty decent plan." She smacked him lightly in the shoulder and he grinned. "Ow, Commander," he objected. "Injured man, here, remember?" He yawned and stretched. "As much as I'd love to join you in that sleep plan, I should probably make sure everything's functioning on the bridge."

"Everything is fine, Jeff," EDI replied.

"Riley was partying with everyone else," he pointed out. "I'm not going to let him get behind the wheel – "

"Riley," EDI replied, "is sleeping it off with the rest of the crew, as should you be. I have no need of sleep, have not consumed any alcohol, and am more than capable of guiding the _Normandy_ to nowhere in particular while you and Shepard get some much-needed rest."

Joker sighed and let his head flop back against the pillow. "I'm not going to win this one, am I?"

"I don't know why you even bothered," Shepard said.

"Me neither, really," he agreed. "Good night, EDI."

"Good night, Jeff. And you, Shepard."

"Good night, EDI," she replied, and rolled over to tuck herself against Joker's side. "'Night," she whispered against his neck, sending a shiver through him.

"'Night," he replied on a yawn, and he rested his cheek against the top of her head, closing his eyes against the sight of the stars rushing by above them, and trusting their ship to stay the course until morning.  
______________

"I guess I should be honored," Shepard had said in her last transmission. "The admiral's coming to personally oversee my transfer back to the holding facility on Earth." It was the last time he'd seen her, vid screen crackly and unreliable, her eyes looking tired and resigned.

She had brokered immunity for him and Chakwas – the only members of the team with any interest in returning to the Alliance – which meant that he was free to be there, waiting by the transit as she was ushered out of lockdown, surrounded by people way above his pay grade.

"Commander, wait!" he called, and she lifted her head, already smiling as she met his eyes. One of her guards stepped forward to block his path. "You haven't given me authorization for the VI interface," he continued, his voice ringing out down the hallway. "We won't be able to complete the _Normandy_ 's retrofit without it!"

The words did the trick, the admiral giving a brisk nod to the guard holding him back, and Joker ducked around him towards Shepard. Her guard stepped back a pace or two, but hovered beside them until Joker gave him a pointed look. "Hey, buddy, we're exchanging sensitive information, here," he said.

The guard raised an eyebrow at him and backed up approximately another pace and a half. Joker sighed and took Shepard's arm, steering her towards the edge of the walkway and out of earshot, dislodging her OmniTool in the process.

"Joker," she hissed. "What - "

"Just...trust me, Shepard, okay?" he asked. He pocketed her OmniTool, and she frowned deeply, tracking his hand as it slipped back up under her sleeve and fastened the new one to her arm. He let his fingers brush lightly over her wrist as he pulled his hand away, and gave a tiny smile at the way she couldn't help shivering a little. "You're supposed to be giving me codes," he prompted her, and she met his eyes before turning the new tool on, flickering to life around her arm.

"Hello, Shepard," EDI's voice said quietly.

Her eyes went wide. "How did you - "

"Tali, mostly" he said succinctly. "Mobile interface, tuned specifically to your physiology." He turned his on and pretended to be transferring data. "Performs all the tasks of a basic OmniTool, and also gives you access to the _Normandy_ 's files."

She managed to keep a straight face, but her eyes were bright when they met his, and she let her other hand rest against his side just briefly, out of sight of the guards, as she whispered, "You're a fucking lifesaver, Moreau."

"Damn right, I am," he agreed. He looked at her, then down at the glowing interface. "Keep her safe," he said to both of them in an undertone.

"Same to you," she replied, and shut down the display, keeping a hand cupped against the mechanism like she was reassuring herself it was still there. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to lean in and kiss her, right there in the Presidium, in full view of the admiral and her guards and everyone, so he took two steps back and saluted her instead, sharp and clean and more heartfelt than he'd ever done anything when he was actually with the Alliance.

She returned the gesture, but couldn't keep a tiny smile from spreading across her face. "Look at you," she said as she relaxed and they made their way back to her guard. "They'll make a lieutenant out of you again yet."

"They better," he replied. "At least. Hell, what do you think? Lieutenant Commander Moreau. I could rock that." He handed her over to her guard while she was still laughing, which he chose to count as a victory instead of an insult. "See ya, Commander," he called lightly as she was marched to the transport, and she raised a hand in a casual wave.

"Don't scratch the paint," she called.

He nodded so she could see him, waving, and he waited until the transport had taken off before he responded quietly, "Not without you."  
______________

"You're telling the wrong story," he said, looking at the reporter over his drink.

She leaned against the bar, raising her eyebrows at him. "Oh?" she asked. "How so?"

He shrugged and took a long sip out of the bottle in front of him. "Look, you're not the first person to buy me a drink and try to get me to tell you all of Shepard's dirty secrets, and you won't be the last. I'll take the drink, don't get me wrong. I might even tell you a few funny stories while I'm at it, although the chances that you can actually believe them are pretty slim, and the chances that you can print them are even slimmer. But I think you have the potential to do something useful here, so I feel like it might be my duty to tell you that you're approaching this whole thing all wrong."

"I'm not telling you how to fly your ship," she pointed out. "You want to try to tell me how to write my piece?"

"No, write what you want," he said, waving a hand. "That's not the point. The point is that you're making the same mistake everybody makes. You're trying to write a story about Shepard."

"And what should I be writing about?" she asked. " _You_?"

He laughed. "Nah, I'm a pilot," he replied. "I've already got more ego than I need. The problem is in your approach. You're writing a story about the girl who ran away from earth to see the stars, but you're missing the best part. You're missing _how_ she did that. This isn't a biography piece. It's not a courtroom drama, and it's not even a war story, although anything you can do to get word of the Reaper threat out there to people is a step in the right direction." 

"What is it, then?" she asked. "Enlighten me."

He gave her a big cheesy grin. "It's a love story."

She rolled her eyes. "It's been nice talking to you, Lieutenant," she said, pushing back her chair.

"What, is that too human interest for a hard-hitting journalist like you?" he asked.

"Commander Shepard doesn't have a lover, Lieutenant. Believe me, if any evidence of that existed, I'd have uncovered it by now. The most I've been able to dig up are a few flings from well before the mission on Eden Prime that started all this, and quite honestly, who she's sleeping with is irrelevant to me unless it has any tactical significance. I'm producing segments for ANN, not Fornax."

"Who said anything about a lover?" he asked. "The relationship I'm talking about is way more complicated than that."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "If you're talking about yourself again..."

He laughed, holding up his hands. "Okay, my ego's big, but it's not _that_ big." He eyed her. "Have you ever lived onboard a vessel? I'm not talking about getting from place to place, I mean really _lived_ there. Slept there, worked there, been trapped there for months on end, seeing the same faces pass you in the hall every day?" She shook her head. "Well, Shepard has. She's spent her entire life in the sky, except for those first few miserable years on Earth, and she never had any intention of doing otherwise. When Anderson gave her command of the _Normandy_ ," he shook his head. "You've never known anything like it. Neither have I. We probably never will. He made that move, and he handed her the keys to the galaxy. She's lived onboard her, she's _died_ onboard her, she's brought her to the end of the universe and back, and she's sitting in lockdown right now because somebody told her that - even after all the ways she's saved all of our lives a few hundred times over - she still has to prove that she's _earned_ her."

"That's what this is about?" she asked. "A ship?"

"Not _a_ ship." He tossed back the last of his drink and stood. "You want a story about Shepard? First you're going to have to realize that every story about Shepard is a story about the _Normandy_. This universe just doesn't make any sense if you try to take one without the other. Put _that_ in your piece." 

He nodded at her and turned for the exit, pausing at the edge of the bar as she called after him. "And how is it that you fit into this equation, Mr. Moreau?" she asked. "You seem to have an awful lot to say on the subject."

"Me?" he asked. He turned and grinned at her. "I'm the pilot. This story's not about me."


End file.
